LL-L 'Phonology' 2006.06.26 (08] [E]

Mon Jun 26 03:18:05 UTC 2006

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L O W L A N D S - L * 26 June 2006 * Volume 08
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From: 'Tom Carty' <cartyweb at hotmail.com>
Subject: LL-L 'Sports' 2006.06.26 (06] [E]

n Irish, one is aon (pron ay-eoin)

Its similar in Scots and Manx Gaelic.

I think it comes from Latin, hence the similarity with Germanic words for
one.

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From: 'Stellingwerfs Eigen' <info at stellingwerfs-eigen.nl
Subject: LL-L 'Phonology'

Henno wrote:
> And further broken to "jin" and "ien" [jIn] as well. Here "jin" is
> the objective form of "one" as an indefinite pronoun (belonging to "men"
[m at n] as
> the subjective form):
> "men moat jin altyd waskje" (one always has to wash oneself), and as
> an cardinal it is broken in
> compounds: "ienentweintich" ([jIn at ntwaint@x].

Additional to that _jin_ in 'ienentweintig' sometimes we use 'jitres' (Nl.
eens, Ã©Ã©nmaal; E. once, one time).
Hope it's another little piece in the puzzle.
Mei freonlike groetnis Ã¹t FryslÃ¢n,
Piet Bult

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From: Dan Prohaska <danielprohaska at bluewin.ch>
Subject: Phonology

Reinhard,
As far as I know, breaking of ME /O:/, initial and following /h/, was a
fairly regular feature of West and North-West Midlands speech. A further
example which comes to mind is the Lancashire pronunciation of as
[wOm].

Not also that in the area where this breaking originates the vowel isn't /V/
as in RP, but /O/.

I should think that the distinction may have been imported into Standard
English as a practical dissimilation of homophones like and
which would both have been /o:n/.

Dan

***

From: R. F. Hahn <sassisch at yahoo.com>
Subject: Phonology

Folks,

The English word "one" [wAn] keeps on mystifying me.

First of all, it had a rounded vowel throughout its history. I can dig
that, since dialectal rounding of long /a/ was not unknown in Old English:
thus _Än_ ~ _Ån_ 'one', which I assume were pronounced *[Q:n] ~ *[O:n]
([Q:] = "posh" British as in "father" or Swedish as in _bra_, [O:] as in
drawn out "God!"). However, there were dialects that used short [a] in this
word, given occasional occurrence of _ann_, rarely even _Ã¦n_.

In the north of Britain, *_ayn_ held its ground, hence Scots _ayn_ for 'one'
[e:n], consistent with _stayn_ [ste:n] 'stone', _alane_ [@"le:n] 'alone',
_bayn_ [be:n] 'bone', etc. (cf. Low Saxon [E.In], [stE.In], [?a"lE.In],
[bE.In] respectively).

Somehow the rounded version too over in Southern England and consequently in
what might be called "Standard English." I can dig that too.

What mystifies me mostly is what appears to be Frisian-like "breaking" in
"one", something I assume developed from a falling diphthong: *oon > *uon >
*won > wAn.

(_Oon_ is one of the attested Middle English spellings, by the way.)
However, it does not seen to be a Frisicism, given non-rounded Modern
Westerlauwer Frisian _ien_ (< *_een_, "broken" to [ien]).

Breaking in early dialectal versions of "one" are indeed fairly common, such
as chiefly Northern _yane_, _yean_ and _yan_, also Northern Irish English
_yane_ and _yin_. The Irish English case is not too surprising, given that
Irish English (ans also West Indies English) consistently uses falling
diphthongs where other dialects have rising diphthongs (e.g., _bone_ England
[boUn] versus Ireland and West Indies [buOn] ~ broken [bwOn]).

The most puzzling part to me is that what in "general" English seems to be a
case of vowel breaking in "one" seems to be unique rather than a part of a
generally applying rule. I can't come up with other such cases.

As I said, it makes sense in Irish and West Indies English as a part of a
general pattern. Other such example are Sorbian (Lusatian) and Polabian in
which initial [O] () became [wO].

English: he | window | person | eight | around
Polabian: wÃ´n | wÃ´knÃ¼ ~ waknÃ¼ | ? | visÄ›m | ?
Sorbian: won | wokno | wosoba | wosom | wokolo
Kashubian: Ã²n | Ã²kno | ? | woesmÃ« | ?
Polish: on | okno | osoba | osiem | wokolo
Czech: on | okno | osoba | osm | okolo
Slovak: on | okno | osoba | osem | okolo
Ukrainian: vin | okno | osoba | visim | -
Belarusan: jon | vakno | asoba | vosem | -
Russian: on | okno | osoba | vosem' | -
Slovene: on | okno | oseba | osem | okoli
Croatian: on | okno | osoba | osam | okolo
Serbian: on | okno | osoba | osam | okolo
Bulgarian: - | - | - | osem | okolo

Any thoughts, idea?

Thanks.

Reinhard/Ron

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